


the ice cream fic

by blindbatalex



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fluff and Crack, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, also ice cream, and, and spoonfeeding, don't ask me, set in 2013 after that game, this fic is a marriage of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 14:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14546523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex
Summary: Friends feed friends ice cream when they are hurt right? It's no big deal.Or,Patrice is hurt. Brad wants to take care of him and there are Many Feelings around ice cream.





	the ice cream fic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mm_nani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mm_nani/gifts).



Brad comes to the sofa in the evening, grinning ear to ear, his hands clasped behind his back. It’s been two days since Patrice has been released from the hospital and two days since Brad temporarily moved in, promising to take care of him just until he gets better.

“I have a surprise for you,” Brad says and he looks gorgeous swimming in a t-shirt three times too big for his size and his hair mussed up with no product to hold it in place.

Patrice has to take a moment to center himself, to stop it from getting to his head.

“Yeah?”

Brad brings one of his hands forward to reveal a tub of ice cream, complete with a tadaa! for a dramatic unveiling.

Patrice’s eyes widen at the sight. It’s caramel cookie crunch too - Patrice’s favorite - and absolutely off limits during the season when clean eating is the name of the game. But now--

“There are months until training camp and if you will play with a freaking punctured lung the team owes you any ice cream you want,” Brad says with his free hand raised in defense, as if he read Patrice’s mind.

Brad does that a lot. Read Patrice’s mind.

He sits down on the other side of the sofa and starts the episode, knowing that he has already won the argument. They whizzed their way through half a season of Arrow already when Patrice hasn’t been napping and they have no intention of stopping any time soon.

A problem presents itself when Brad hands him the tub, his eyes still glued to the TV. 

Patrice looks at it to try and figure out how to scoop some onto the spoon while holding the tub when he has only one free hand. He tries to bring it up to where his left hand is poking out of the sling but quickly gives up on the idea when his shoulder voices its displeasure. Next he attempts to stick the tub between his knees for leverage but he must have turned at a bad angle because he gets positively stabbed by his injured rib.

He hisses in pain before he can stop himself.

Immediately the TV freezes and Brad’s head whips to him, his brow knit together in concern. Understanding dawns on his face when he sees what Patrice was trying to do with the tub.

“Aw shit,” he says quickly, “sorry man, I didn’t think.”

Patrice tells him it’s fine. He says it through his teeth though, still trying to clamp down on the pain and he doesn’t think Brad buys it per se.

He hands the tub back to Brad when he catches his breath a moment later, making an excuse about the importance of eating well when he can’t exercise.

Brad gives him a look at once incredulous and defiant. “Nonsense.” he says. “No.”

His righteous anger is all well and fine but it gets under Patrice’s skin. Patrice hates being an invalid who can’t even manage to eat ice cream on his own too, but that is his reality right now and unless Brad wants to spoon feed it to him he doesn’t see a solution. And it’s fine. It’s what he signed up for and what he would do again and again to get his team a shot at winning.

Brad has done too much, gone out of his way too much for him as is. This one he will just have to let go.

“Okay,” Brad says after a moment when Patrice tells him as much, “yeah man, that works.”

He restarts the episode and a pang of guilt makes its way through Patrice’s chest at having snapped at Brad for no reason. 

On the screen yet another villain is talking about his diabolical plot. Patrice tracks the frankly atrocious acting with disinterest, wondering when it will cut back to Oliver, wondering if he could just excuse himself and go to bed if not to sleep then to wallow in his misery in the dark.

Before he can make a decision and before the camera cuts to Oliver, a spoon interrupts his line of sight, cutting off all other thoughts. Specifically it’s a spoon carrying a small scoop of ice cream and is aimed directly at his face.

Patrice opens his mouth to protest and in it goes, delivering its load right into his mouth.

Patrice makes a strangled sound, too stunned for anything else. The ice cream bursts into cold sugary caramel goodness on his tongue and the spoon retracts back.

“Dude what the fuck?”

Brad raises his eyebrows like he doesn’t understand the question and tells Patrice he can switch the flavor to either chocolate chip or butter pecan if Patrice prefers.

Patrice explains to him, what he hopes is patiently, that that’s really not what’s at issue here.

Brad doesn’t let it go. Brad never lets anything go. “Oh are we having a no homo moment?” he asks with his eyebrows raised instead, “is a dude feeding you ice cream where you finally draw the line Bergy?”

A spark of anger flies in Patrice’s chest. The irony of Brad saying that to him alone-- 

“ _Finally_ -?” he echoes.

“I mean I went to your cousin’s wedding as your plus one right? Shared clothes, shared your bed-- I don’t see what the big deal is here.”

Patrice had asked him to come last summer, explaining that everyone on the groom’s side were racist assholes and he needed someone there to annoy the hell out of them. In reality he had just wanted to spend a little bit more time with Brad but it was a bad idea, and it took Patrice the rest of summer to recover from the sight of Brad in a tux flashing him a knowing grin while needling annoying guests.

“The big deal is--why are you here?” Patrice says quickly, “why sacrifice your vacation to play half housewife half babysitter to me when you could literally be anywhere else in the world?”

And there it is, the question that’s been bothering him for days. Brad hasn’t stopped since they came home, cooking and cleaning and even sorting through the giant pile of laundry that has been accumulating since his cleaning lady quit, when he has no obligation, when no one asked him to do so.

He could be home two days into a hunting trip with his family or on a beach somewhere sipping cocktails instead of here cutting Patrice’s food into bite size pieces and spending his nights marathoning bad TV.

“Sacrifice-” Brad shoots back, returning fire with fire, “the way you sacrificed life and limb to give us a shot at winning Game 6?”

It’s not the same thing. Brad has got to see that. The Bruins gave Patrice everything. Patrice would die for them.

“And you think I wouldn’t die for you?”

There is a beat where the question echoes around the room. Brad opens his mouth only to close it without making a sound as if he realized what he just admitted to too late. Patrice looks at him just as dumbfounded - he doesn’t know how to respond to that, how he ever could.

He can _see_ though - the way color rises on Brad’s cheeks and the way he looks away, his fingers curling around the ice cream tub until his knuckles are white, and that will just not do.

“Hey,” Patrice says poking Brad’s shoulder. Brad’s eyes flick back to Patrice, trying to hold his ground. 

He takes in a breath and lets his fingers wrap around Brad’s on the tub, tells him he doesn’t know what he did to deserve Brad. Brad startles at the gesture - or is it at the words? - though he covers it well.

“But it would be a shame if we let this gorgeous tub of ice cream go to waste. So--” Patrice opens his mouth in his best approximation of a baby bird waiting to be fed. 

It must do the trick because Brad snorts. “Jesus, here,” he says around a grin, one that reaches his eyes, as he scoops some ice cream onto the spoon.

Later, he decides, he will have to tell Brad. He will have to tell Brad how breathtaking he looked at the wedding that day, he looks everyday, just what a wonderful person he is. He will have to tell Brad that he loves him back just as fiercely, whether it leads to romance or not and he will probably choke up before he even gets started.

But not just yet. For now Patrice hums with delight at the next spoonful of ice cream coming his way and contends himself with the feeling of Brad’s skin under his against the cold as the TV plays on in the background.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading friends! Kudos and especially comments are my lifeblood, it's how I survive. @blindbatalex on tumblr if you want to come say hi.


End file.
